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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25486195">Warning Signs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting'>savanting</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Multi POV at some point, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, keeping the relationship tags simple yet subject to change, ongoing work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:33:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25486195</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Solo is gone, and grief has gripped Rey and won't let her go. But the Force is still tugging at her psyche to keep working in its favor. But she won't be its puppet -- will she?</p><p>(To be updated as the muse cooperates.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Warning Signs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do not own Star Wars, no matter how much I wish I did! This was meant to be a short fic about grief and moving on, but now I want to explore some other implications of what it means to be a Jedi with a broken heart. It should be interesting, I hope. Please enjoy!</p><p>Title was inspired by lyrics from the song "Exile" by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were only so many ways a heart could mend after great devastation. Rey had had her heart broken again and again, whether that was through splintered trust or just outright abandonment, but already she knew her heart would be in tatters for a long, long while.</p><p>The flight from Exegol had been a lonely one, less a heroic return and more a somber procession. Her tears had blurred her vision, complicating matters as she flew past debris and needed to be on her keenest to make sure the X-Wing did not falter or go down in sparks.</p><p>The worst was that the Force felt like a large, gaping hole that sought to devour her from the inside-out. And her mind kept reaching for the bond, trying to sense anything from it, but Ben Solo was nowhere to be found. Rey didn’t even have a body to bury, and somehow that was the greatest atrocity of all.</p><p>By the time she reached the Resistance base - <i>back home</i>, even though that felt wrong - her tears had dried on her cheeks. She could even bring herself to smile, though it hurt like her face had been stung by something venomous. It was a mask she would need in the coming days.</p><p>Even stepping into Finn’s arms, his waiting embrace, had felt like a concession of some kind.</p><p>She envisioned being held by a different man, one who would engulf her and tuck her head against his chest, but every time she tapped into the Force was a new revelation.</p><p>Ben Solo was really, truly gone.</p><p>*</p><p>“Rey,” Finn’s voice broke through the fog, “you need to eat something.”</p><p>She jolted, as if from a dream, and then she realized she had mangled her dinner. The tray was a mash of vegetable, potato, and shreds of meat, all destroyed by the tines of her fork. Yet she hadn’t eaten a single bite. All she had managed to do was waste food, yet she couldn’t even bring herself to feel anger at herself. She never refused a meal. Too long she had lived without, but the last few days everything she ate tasted like metal in her mouth.</p><p>“I get it,” Finn continued, laying his own fork down and leaving a half-eaten plate. “I mean, we just survived a war. Anyone would lose their appetite over that.”</p><p>“Mm,” she murmured, noncommittally, because this numbness went beyond the war. Even though she had slept for days after returning to the Resistance and her friends, she still didn’t feel quite right. Her dreams had been a jumble - cruel laughter, flashes of lightning on a barren landscape, a hand she kept grasping but losing from her grip - but the worst of it was that the Force felt so alien now, a living and breathing thing that had betrayed her one too many times.</p><p>She had had all the Jedi surge through her in her stand-off against Palpatine, yet the Force had not allowed her to keep the man she had been ready to love. When she had awoken from that dark place, the place where she had been ready to lose herself to some great unknown, she had kissed his face - only for him to fall back and disappear as if he had been more ghost than man.</p><p>“You can talk to me,” Finn assured her, laying his hand atop hers across the table. “I may not be the smartest guy, but I can be a sounding board. I can listen. If you need me.”</p><p>Rey wasn’t even talking, yet this conversation felt exhausting already. But she had to play a part, had to keep going, had to pretend that she was the hero who could prevail against all the ills of the world. The Jedi had accepted her, and she could envision a future where she passed on the knowledge she had gained.</p><p>But just because she could see that future did not mean she wanted it. She had seen many futures with the help of the Force, but all of them felt like lies. Grand deceptions to keep her docile and complacent.</p><p>“Rey,” Finn’s voice called back to her, away from her reverie, “I’m worried about you. Let me help.”</p><p>A visceral part of her thought of lashing out. <i>What do you know? You weren’t there! How can you possibly help?</i> But she could never say those words to Finn. Not her Finn, who was so reliable and <i>so good</i> and so true to her. It wasn’t his fault that someone else had lay claim to her heart in a different way that was more consuming than anything else.</p><p>And now her heart was a black hole that threatened to eat her up and make her a living doll.</p><p>But she didn’t voice this. Not now, not yet. Instead, she squeezed Finn’s hand and smiled. So easy, almost too easy. She couldn’t lie to herself, but she could still lie to everyone else. “It’s a lot to process,” she said, “but thank you for being here. I don’t know what I would do without a friend like you.”</p><p>Rey pretended not to see the way Finn frowned at the word <i>friend</i>, but she wasn’t ready to address that issue. She would rather face down an army of rathtars on her own. Finn was her person in many ways, but she could not imagine loving him in the ways he might have wanted. Besides, he deserved someone who could love him fully - not a fractured love that would make them both hurt.</p><p>The moment stretched, but at last Finn’s mouth curved. “You don’t have to go through this alone,” he said. “I’m here for you, always.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Her mouth shaped the words, but she didn’t feel them. Gratitude was something alien to her now. She wanted to curse the world instead of protect it.</p><p>What kind of Jedi could she be now? Her ruined heart was something that had tainted her and made her weak.</p><p>It was no wonder that the Jedi had rebuked that strong, potent chaos known as <i>love</i>. It was a killer that had no business residing within her. She had to banish it, but that would take time. And time felt like its own burden right now.</p><p>The cold floor of Exegol was probably where she should have stayed. At least then she had a purpose, saving the galaxy and playing the hero.</p><p>But what awaited her now? That question was what she had to address. No matter how much it hurt.</p><p>No matter how much she wondered why she was the one left behind, saved, while the Force abandoned <i>him</i>.</p><p>And Rey knew one thing: the Force was not done with her yet.</p>
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